Friday marked the end of the road for the career of senior Melanie Tham, who sustained a season-ending injury after two falls. The meet also marked the end of the home season for the Cyclones who had a 195.175–194.150 loss to Iowa.

Before the third rotation on beam, the team had been scoring below par, but was still in close running with the Hawkeyes. However, during Tham’s beam performance she had a non-serious fall, after which coach Jay Ronayne said the team became shaken and had some uncharacteristic mistakes.

“We did as well as we could on vault, and bars could have been a little sharper,” Ronayne said. “We gave away a couple landing tenths so that just kept the door open for Iowa. Having Melanie fall on beam surprisingly shook everybody up and once that door was open they weren’t going to give up. We just kept making mistakes and we can’t do that.”

While warming up on floor exercise before the fourth rotation, Tham suffered another more serious fall coming off of a tumbling pass. The accident resulted in a torn Achilles tendon.

Tham’s parents, who were there to watch their daughter’s final performance in Hilton Coliseum, witnessed the accident and it was the only time her father had ever seen her perform during her collegiate career.

“She’s out. She’s done,” Ronayne said. “It’s the type of injury that a gymnast doesn’t come back from within a year, so it’s the end of the road for her gymnastics career.”

Senior Ashley Kent said Tham’s injury affected the team because her fall happened so close to when she was supposed to perform. The team had to rush in a replacement, freshman Jessica Rizzi, who still managed to do her part and scored a 9.600.

“The team did get a little down,” said senior Ceilia Maccani. “We brought everyone in and told them that our job doesn’t change and that we still need to go out and hit five floor routines, but I still think it was in the back of everyone’s mind just a little bit. For the most part though, I think we did a pretty good job of picking it up and Rizzi stepped in for Melanie on floor and did awesome.”

There were two other falls that occurred during performances on the floor exercise, however, and the team was forced to count an 8.875, which effectively ended the team’s chance at a win.

The loss was especially unwelcome to the seniors because it wasn’t quite the way they wanted to go out at their last meet at Hilton Coliseum.

“It was bittersweet,” Kent said. “I was definitely glad I went out and ended on a good note, but unfortunately we didn’t have the performance we wanted to. But just being able to spend five years here was the best experience of my life so it’s still just a nice goodbye.”

Ronayne said he was disappointed at the team’s performance though because the gymnasts were not as focused as they should have been. He said he thought they let some other things distract them and overshadow what they were supposed to be doing.

“We tell them to take care of the three things that are important to us: hit routines, stick your landings and make it look pretty,” Ronayne said. “They weren’t doing that [Friday], it’s that simple. We talk about that all the time, keeping it simple and the three points to take care of, and they weren’t focused on that.”

The Cyclones still have two regular season meets before the Big 12 Championship and they will now compete with younger replacements due to Tham’s injury.